Join the Buzzle!

Waiting at a bus stop is quite boring, right?
Well, we have a solution!

For the course User Interface Design we created an interactive game: The Buzzle!

The Buzzle is an interactive game for people who travel by bus. In order to pass their time at bus stops, people seek social interaction. Therefore, the Buzzle invites people to pass their time by playing an interactive and appealing puzzle game on a bus stop, alone or together with other people. This way, interactive bus stops within a city or in multiple cities can compete against each other by trying to solve the puzzle as fast as possible. You can also join the Buzzle-network on Facebook and look up interesting stats, facts, scores, and other people who also participated!

Watch the following video to get an impression:

How to gather realistic emotions?

In conversations, people try to express their feelings through non-verbal communication and emotions, which makes emotions very important for communication. As a result, there are many studies about non-verbal communication and emotions. However, given that you can't fake emotions, how is it possible to investigate them? To learn more about how to gather realistic emotions for research, we interviewed Martijn Goudbeek, who is a staff member of the Department of Communication and Information Sciences at Tilburg University. Martijn Goudbeek is specialized in the production and perception of emotion, nonverbal communication (voice and gesture), speech perception, and the production of referring expressions.

The following video is the result of the interview:

Spotify: a free jukebox

From the moment that Spotify was released in the Netherlands, the number of users of this online music service has been increasing. Spotify is originally a Swedish music streaming service, which includes more than 10 million songs. You have to sign up for one of the three services (free, unlimited, or premium), and subsequently you can download the stream and listen to music. The main difference between de free-account and the other accounts is the fact that you can listen to music for free, though up to a maximum of 20 hours a month. Furthermore, in contrast with the unlimited-account and the premium-account, the free service includes some advertisements.

Spotify makes it possible for the users to stream music online, and every account offers specific opportunities; such as the possibility to download tracks and listen to music on a smartphone. Furthermore, people don’t need CD’s or MP3’s anymore to listen to music.
Even though Spotify depends on whether you have access to the Internet, the number of users has been increasing over the past year, due to the large amount of music.


However, some things about the free account are going to change on May 1st. After you signed up, you can still listen to music up to 20 hours a month. However, after half a year the maximum will decrease to only 10 hours a month. In addition, free users will only be able to play each track up to a total of five times. Nevertheless, the unlimited-account and premium-account are not going to change at all.

Spotify seems to be a good alternative for illegal music downloading, because many people are obviously willing to pay for the service when it doesn’t costs too much money. However, I wonder whether Spotify actually will be able to break down music piracy.

Twitter from space

Did you know that not only people on earth make use of Twitter to share messages and photo's? You see; also humans in space make use of this social network. In general, several astronauts frequently send tweets to their followers, in order to inform them. Nevertheless, there is a famous astronaut who not only sends messages, but who sends photographs to his followers as well. Soichi Noguchi is a Japanese astronaut who is aboard the space station. He frequently takes pictures of the earth, and sends these photographs back to earth via Twitter. I think that this is a fantastic benefit of Twitter, because Twitter gives people -like astronauts- the possibility to share wonderful pictures with the rest of the world. In this blog post I will give you an overview of a few breathtaking pictures of the earth, taken by Soichi Noguchi.

Take a look at this amazing picture of the Maldives:

He also shared an image of Haïti, after the earthquake:

Furthermore, he made this picture of the Amazon River:

Moreover, an image of the Mount Kilimanjaro:

In addition, a picture of Moscow:

A few days ago (on the 3th of April) he shared this image of the northern lights:

At last, he also made a picture of Amsterdam at night:

If you want to see more; you can find an overview of these pictures from Soichi Noguchi at this website. And of course at his Twitter account.

Brand Dating

"It's all about the brand" was the title of my previous blogpost, and again I found evidence for this quote. Namely, if brands are really important for people, and if people actually choose a specific brand instead of the product itselves, why don't we create a dating site which is based on brands?

That might be the thought of the person who invented Brand Dating. This dating agency allows people, who are looking for their true love, to find the perfect match based on brands. The procedure is simple: you select your favorite brands, and you also choose the brands that your 'true love' must prefer. Subsequently, the agency will find profiles from people who can be your perfect match.

According to this dating site, you can tell more about people from their brands than from common messages (such as: "I'm spontaneous and sporty"). For instance, you can create a mental image of someone who drinks Coca Cola, has a Harley Davidson, and likes to eat at the McDonalds. However, I think that a person is more than just a brand. When you select the brand 'McDonalds' because you like to eat there sometimes, it actually doesn't mean that you eat a Big Mac every week. But how do other people know that? Your 'match' may think that he/she needs to take you out on a date to the McDonalds, because according to your profile on the website you love to eat there.

Therefore, the effect of Brand Dating mainly depends on the selection of the brands: when you only select the brands that are really important to you (ask yourself whether you would buy the same product from another brand), than brands can expose a lot about you indeed.

So, are you looking for a reasonable dating site because you haven't found your true love yet? Perhaps Brand Dating can help you to find your Brand-Match. But be selective! You select your partners carefully, but you should select your brands precisely as well.

It's all about the brand

After many rumors, it was confirmed last week: the new iPad 2 will be released on March 25. This news was published on many international websites, and of course on social media websites as well. However, why is this such a big deal? Obviously Apple has nice, fast, good-looking products, but is the iPad really much better than the tablets from Samsung, LG, or Dell? For instance, Dell just launched the Dell Inspiron Duo Tablet:



This tablet looks great as well, and since I don't know anything about the technological characteristics, I'm questioning the reason why the iPad is so much better than - for instance this Duo Tablet.

From my point of view, the huge success of Apple is not just the result of the products. It's mainly because of the brand, which has become really powerful. Products are temporary, but brands can last for ever. Consequently, businesses like Microsoft, Dell, Samsung, and any other company, don't need to learn more about the technologies, since they are all experts. In fact, the major aspect they have to improve, is the marketing.

In the next inspiring video Simon Sinek clarfies his vision towards the power of Apple:



However, despite my criticism, I must say that if I would want to buy a tablet or a new laptop - and if I would have enough money to buy one -, it would be absolutely from Apple. Not mainly because of the apps or the technology, but because of the brand experience. So yes, after all it's all about the brand indeed.

Egyptian revolution 2.0 (or not?)

January 2011, the month of the Egyptian revolution. It all started on 25 January with demonstrations, marches, labour strikes and fights between demonstrators and supporters of the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Every country in the world was focused on the Middle East, wondering what would happen. Everywhere in Egypt people were gathered to demonstrate against the government, often combined with many violence.

It was possible to follow the developments in Egypt from every place in the world by watching the news or reading newspapers. In addition, everywhere in Egypt people communicated by leaflets, playcards, graffiti, and of course all the TV cameras with life footage. As mentioned in this BBC article: "When one communication channel is blocked, people try another." Meanwhile, this time another communication channel showed up: the internet.

The use of internet and mobile phones to organize demonstrations increased over the past few years. The internet showed his power several times before, and again that power was visible in January 2011. Many protestors in Egypt used social media to spread the news about developments, and to gather people for the next demonstrations. As mentioned in the article, "The Facebook group set up to protest at Khaled Said's death is "liked" by nearly 600,000 people and was a key organising centre for the current protests." However, next to Facebook, mainly Twitter was utilized for communication (#egypt), followed by an almost complete shutdown of international internet access between Egypt and the rest of the world. Nevertheless, on the historic 'Day of Rage' nothing could stop citizens from communicate which each other, and a huge number of citizens came together on the streets. These demonstrations resulted in an historic event: Mubarak resigned as president on 11 February and left Cairo.

From my point of view the internet was truly an important factor in this Egyptian revolution, but it was not the leading factor. I think this revolution would have happened anyway, perhaps just a little slower. After all, it is not the internet that brought this revolution in Egypt. It was hope.

Don't loose your fingers, you might need them.

Technological, electronic developments are a major characteristic of the current society. In addition, mainly the mobile phone industry is dealing with fast developments: Apple and Blackberry are competing with each other nowadays about which telephone is the best one for businesses. However, the main difference between both mobile phones is the absence/presence of a touchscreen, but what are the opportunities of these touchscreens? Touchscreens are not only implemented in many mobile phones, but also in several other environments. In class (User Interface Design) our lecturer showed us a fascinating video about a vision towards the future of touchscreen technologies:



This video shows an impressive imagination about the future. The implementation of the touchscreen is ranging from walls, to mirrors, to windows, etc. However, not every technology in the video is just a fantasy. Many applications in the video are existing (in a low stage and in development though).

Look at this interface which turns your table into one giant computerscreen:



Furthermore, this is an oversized blackboard for interactive teaching (invented at the University of Groningen):



And look at this amazing touchscreen storefront:

As you can see, there are many technological innovations which are still under construction. From my point of view touchscreens offer many opportunities for useful gadgets, but still it is hard to imagine to live in a world like in the first video. It is unknown what life will be within approximately 50 years, but the technology is fast. That's for sure.

Think out of the ordinary-usual-convential-box

In my previous posts I mainly talked about the positive and negative effects of social media, but this time the topic of my post isn't about social media (maybe a little bit though, but it is not main subject).
Today I want to talk about advertising. I suppose you know what advertising means, in short: persuade consumers and convince them to buy your product. Obviously there are many forms of advertising, such as posters, brochures, websites, tv-commercials, and several other techniques. Nevertheless, sometimes it is difficult to choose that specific communication-channel which is appropriate for you business. Meanwhile, despite the endless possibilities of marketing communication, money is still an important factor. However, creativity and originality is even more important to address your target group, and that is why some smart marketers utilize Guerilla marketing.

Companies mainly use conventional channels (tv/radio/print/internet) to advertise a product, but there are many other channels.
Surprisingly not much people are familiar with this method of marketing, although it was invented a long time ago (the term was introduced in 1984 by author Jay Conrad Levinson). The concept behind Guerilla marketing is to address the target group in an unconventional way, in order to surprise them with a unique experience at an unexpected place (for example on the street). From my point of view, guerilla marketing is genius, original, extraordinary, and easy. Take a look at these amazing examples:

















Does these pictures caught your interest?
I think companies should investigate the opportunities of Guerilla marketing for their business, in order to make the target group excited in an unconventional way. Even better, connected to the internet, such as a viral sensation, because internet increases the power of guerilla marketing. A very original example was the advertising campaign on Hyves, about privacy on the internet: Stanislav. In addition, there is an other nice example of a viral campaign: SP Jan Marijnissen.
However, there are a certain amount of techniques for all kind of purposes. Gmarketing.com offers many interesting information about this opportunity. The only way to find out which technique is the best one for your business, is to immerse yourself in this guerilla marketing and learn from the experts. Think out of the box, and be creative.

Big brother is watching you

Today I found a remarkable news-item on CNN.com. The editors of a new online datingsite found an exceptional approach to increase the number of members: steal information from the profiles on Facebook. However, according to the creaters of the datingsite, the purpose was to show the lack of security on the social network Facebook.

This topic triggers me to think about all the people who are still questioning the security of online social networks. I assume that everyone knows someone in his or her environment who is very sceptic about the safety of those social networks.

However, from my point of view it all depends on what you post online.
The internet is open, always, and everywhere, so I do not think that posts/pictures/information will be safe. Nevertheless, many users of social networks does not realize this. Consequently, when a message or a photo shows up on a totally different website, people are dismayed. But why? If you do not want everyone to see your posts; just do not post them!
Of course, websites spend many time to improve their security, but because of the nature of the internet, it is hard to realize this.
Obviously, users trust online social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but I think it is important to realize the risks and the inventiveness of hackers and other online criminals.

In addition, many companies have become aware of the possibility to find information about applicants online. A study from careerbuilder.com shows that Facebook is the most frequently used website to search for information about (potential) employees. Likewise, a specific website in the Netherlands offers businesses a quick search engine to find information about their employees: wieowie.nl
However, how do you know what message and what photograph is inappropriate for you boss? What about a picture of you in a funny costume on a party? Or a negative message about your annoying colleague? In my opinion you should ask yourself whether photographs and messages are relevant. Furthermore, it might be wise to control your privacy settings on online profiles. After all, the first impression (offline as well as online) is the most important one.

Challanges and opportunities of social media

Hi!

My name is Fleur van Dommelen, I live in the tremendous city Tilburg, and I am studying Communication & Information Sciences at Tilburg University.

After finishing the first semester two weeks ago, my second semester already started last week. Their are several interesting and exciting courses in this semester, including Business Information Technology. For this course it is required to create a blog and post interesting things we learned in any of the courses at the university. So here I am!

Obviously I want to create a blog that represents me and my interests, but unfortunately I am interested in so many topics! So where do I start? However, in this situation the only solution is to begin and see where it ends. So that is what I am doing right now.

Despite the fact that I am fascinated about several subjects, there is one particular topic that caught my interest last week: the challenges and opportunities of social media for companies. Without doubt, social media is very trendy at the moment. Approximately everybody created a profile on an online social network, such as Facebook, Hyves, MySpace, Twitter, etc. Nevertheless, many companies seem to struggle with the implementation of these new media.

To give you a short introduction about the dimensions of social media, I included a movie which shows (slightly dramatic though) the impact of social media. I hope you enjoy:



According to this video and many other resources, it is very important for businesses to implement these social media as both a communication channel and an advertising tool. Therefore, a couple of employees of every company should immerse themselves into social media in order to find opportunities for their businesses.

There are a few examples of great social media companies:

CSR Cooperative:
"To create a group of successful businesses and individuals who have all committed their time and money in support of great CSR causes (Corporate Social Responsibility)."

Project Dog:
"To create dog equality and promote responsible dog ownership."

Twitchange:
"TwitChange is a movement to bring celebrities and fans together in a loud, fun way on Twitter to bring awareness and financial support to charitable causes that change the world."

I think everyone knows that social media has become very important for the society, but still I am sometimes really surprised about the impact of these new media.
Without doubt, social media is an effective way to get positive (as well as negative) publicity for your business, so if you want to be more successful, you need to focus on all the challanges and opportunities of social media marketing.

Next time I will post an other topic which represents my current interests. See you soon!